Rob's Family Vacation to WDW - June 2004 - Day 5 - AK/MGM

Players: Rob (the guy footing the bill), Debbie (the wife), Donny (the son), Hayley (the daughter)

Lodging: Port Orleans: French Quarter an EPCOT Resort

Dates: 6/3-6/10 (This post relates to 6/7)

Transportation: Nissan Quest van

We again left our room around 8:30 am, this time bound for Disney's Animal Kingdom. As we headed toward our car in the parking lot, we were stopped by a car that was leaving. It was Tim and Erika, who were headed home. We talked briefly before exchanging our farewells and wishing them a safe return trip.

Shortly, we had parked in the Animal Kingdom's lot, specifically the Peacock section, row 7. We had parked at the end of the row that was closest to the park, while the tram picked people up at the other end of the row. From experience, we knew that the walk to the front entrance was about the same distance as the walk to the tram, so while everyone else headed to the tram, we went against the crowd toward the sidewalk.

We were surprised to see a rather large crowd gathered outside the entrance. Granted, the park hadn't quite opened yet, but this was the busiest that we had seen the newest park. After we were admitted, we headed towards Dinosaur Land because Hayley was wanting to ride Primeval Whirl since she had been too short to ride on our last trip. We stopped along the way to view the It's Tough To Be A Bug 3-D movie.

Upon arriving at Dinosaur Land, Hayley made a dash for the height restriction sign at Primeval Whirl only to find that she was still about an inch too short. I appeased her by taking her on Dinosaur instead, despite my misgivings of having to see Doctor Seeker after having so recently been voted off the Survivor Island by him. :wink:

We then left Dinosaur Land only to run into a cousin of mine from Indiana. We knew she would be at Walt Disney World sometime during our stay, but didn't make any plans to meet, so it was a bit of a shcok to just happen to bump into her. We sat down for a bit to watch the Tarzan Rocks show, then headed to lunch. Despite having just had pizza the night before, we ended up at Pizzafari.

After dinner, we went to Camp Mickey-Minnie and got photos of Donald, Goofy, and Minnie. We had also seen Pluto, Mickey, and Brother Bear, but didn't manage to get their picture. We stopped to get ice cream before deciding to leave to do a few other things.

For starters, we headed to the TTC, because Donny's cap had been moved from MGM to the central Lost and Found at the Kennel Club at the TTC. That took awhile, so we then chose to go to Downtown Disney to have dinner at Planet Hollywood. After dinner, we headed back to MGM planning to see Fantasmic! and possibly the Great Movie Ride.

When we arrived at MGM, we noticed that the Great Movie Ride's line was extremely long. So, we ruled that out and headed over to catch the last show of WWTBAM-PI!. Can you tell we're addicts yet? A gentleman sitting behind us struck up a conversation and we found out that he and I are something of acquaintances through another internet board. Again, none of us made it into the Hot Seat, but it was a good show and ended too soon. We left there and started walking toward the front of the park towards Fantasmic!.

We got seated at Fantasmic! and then noticed the all too familiar storm clouds closing in once more. The guy sitting next to me said that the storm was going to miss us. About 15 minutes later he was proved very wrong as it starting raining like crazy. Once again, we left without seeing the show or Jillian. The rain continued to come down hard for most of the evening. At least it would be a good night to sleep, which is what we did.